John_Cillis

Video made from "Go For Launch Mercury", I downsized the video to 720p so I could upload it faster.... The program can be found here, but it is not fully developed yet, it serves its purpose for my enjoyment though https://store.steampowered.com/app/467400/Go_For_Launch_Mercury/

I would if I could, but I dedicated my SSD space to most of the US, and I added AeroflyFS2 recently to my hobby. Since I live in the US it makes more sense to invest in scenery where I intend to stay, and fly when I rent aircraft from time to time, which I will probably do, come to think of it, quite soon now that our summer will end soon. John

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2019/08/21/plane-crash-two-rescued-coast-guard-half-moon-bay-california-pkg-vpx.kgo

You can thank Bombardier, also makers of the Dash 100-400, for the A220. It was originally Bombardier's C series which Airbus saved via partnership with Bombardier, to compete with the E-Jets from Brazil that Boeing has partnered with. I am glad to read your report, it is the first I have heard from someone who has flown the C series. I hated the CRJ 200 because its windows were almost at my waist, making it impossible to see the sky during a CRJ 200 fight making me quite nauseous. Bombardier listened and their CRJ 700/900 - oh such sweet and quiet rides in the sky, last flew on them with my daughter to Disneyland about seven years ago or so. I loved those aircraft due to their high windows, same reason I prefer the Boeing 737/747/757/767 and Douglas DC10 and Lockheed L1011. I cannot wait until my first flight in an A220, or a 787, or an EJet in that order..... From Airbus: "Airbus manufactures, markets, and supports A220 Family aircraft through the Airbus-Bombardier partnership, with Bombardier’s two jetliners – previously designated the C Series – being brought into the Airbus commercial aircraft line-up." John Edit: Thought I would share this cool video which shares an A220 experience--see what you mean about the windows!

Found this great freeware Marauder at Rikoo and I would be remiss if I did not include a link to it and the free Quebec City scenery also on that site... Quebec City https://www.rikoooo.com/downloads/viewdownload/68/484 B26 Marauder https://www.rikoooo.com/downloads/viewdownload/52/880 I was in Quebec City first, on my second business trip ever in Montreal in 1990, the day before I flew home my client gave me the day off so I could visit Quebec City during winter carnival, a real treat to see if you have never been there, they also have one in Harbin China but I have never been there. I was in Guam in 1992 and two weeks earlier I did not know I was even going to be going there, I was more than 9000 miles away on vacation in Orlando where I went to from my home in the SF Bay Area using my Delta frequent flyer miles I accrued during my start as a business systems traveler that brought me to Quebec City in 1990. As I was at Epcot's Japan Pavilion, I made a wish "I want to see Japan some day" since I had already been to Europe several times, Canada many times, Mexico once, and South America once during my systems training jobs in 1990. And ten days later, to make a long story short, I was invited to go to Guam for a job that I decided to turn down because of their housing costs, but the prospective employer affiliated with the health giant Genentech, where I interviewed for the job, invited me to go there for free. A few days before the interview I went to Bakersfield, on an interview for another client I had worked for that wanted me to work for them, but I turned them down thinking I was going to stay in Guam. On my Guam trip, my wish to see Japan came true, because I had a long enough layover there I had to rest in a hotel near Narita Airport and like Tom Cruise in the movie "The Last Samurai" or Anjin San in Shogun, I got to see the beautiful Japanese countryside and architecture (which can be seen in Xplane11 there is freeware scenery that changes the autogen in Japan to Japanese architecture) The last set of pics, in Honolulu, I went there with my daughter to celebrate her thirteenth birthday there in October 2012 when one of my colleagues from India, who had just gone, insisted I see Hawaii just once even if it was just Oahu. We stayed at the iconic Hilton Hawaiian Village, and for my daughter's birthday present I took her the night before to Macaroni Grill, then the next morning of her birthday, on a real one hour electric sub ride, the only real sub submersion I have ever been on, although my father has sailed on a real nuke sub from Hawaii to California on a reactor refurb mission, we even have a signed photo from their crew, but I cannot post the pic here because it was a spy sub, all I can say. Sorry China and Russia, we know you are out there, lol.... End of Back Story, my life, like the famous PBS star James Burke has shown all of us about our history, has been full of the same serendipity and connection I am sure the rest of you here have had. It is called by Physicists "Quantum Entanglement", which is how our thoughts can indeed travel faster than the speed of light, in a certain way..... John

Justflight's Duchess is a great platform from which to view California's secret mountain Paradise, the Trinity Alps.... Loved by hikers, fishermen and swimmers for decades, they are worth a visit and are N/NW of Redding. AeroflyFS2, with its wonderful default Photoscenery, is a great VFR platform for viewing this beautiful scenery.... I feel AeroflyFS2, with its superior rendering speed and Vulkan support, is probably the best sim here for VFR flight, although I still adore Xplane11 and P3DV4 for their study level add-ons and weather engines, so one should never count those two baddie sims out! John

"It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet. Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy....." Edit: Centauri once told Alex, "May the luck of the Seven Pillars of Gulu be with you at all times." from the movie "The Last Starfighter" a great movie to watch if you have not seen it from the 80's, a lighter type of Star Wars film with stunning special effects including some of the first CGI effects..... I have the very rare video game installed on my computer, made by someone and recreating the movie's fight scenes quite well and graphics. It is hard to find on the web though, I lost the link..... It does run even under Windows 10....

No, I solved my problem by removing some conflicts between my Nvidia settings and P3D settings, because I realize since responding to this thread, my Nvidia settings and P3D settings were conflicting with each other, I had Vsync and framelock turned on in P3D, but I also had set Vsync to 1/2 my monitor's refresh rate and I had adaptive tear control on, plus you must use threaded optimization, and none of those three Nvidia settings are set by default, and if you upgrade your Windows or drivers, they can get blown away. So I found it is good to check them, since I just updated Windows 10 to the latest build in the last couple of days, and I updated my Nvidia driver to the most current version, then reset my three Nvidia Inspector settings and unchecked Vsync and set unlimited fps in P3D. That restored the ATR 42, same species of ATR that you have since they share the same brain, to great performance, all this I have done since I rested last night and woke up this morning. I hope all of this makes sense, the issues are driver related, not product related as I thought, and I hate Windows update with a passion because it usually screws up some Nvidia driver, or some Nvidia setting when it updates, and in some instances it has completely blown my highest resolution support away. I supported a 300 node, three state, Windows NT WAN back in the day, but Microsoft has gotten very sloppy with poorly trained outsourced employees working for them from who knows where, and it is not that they are dumb, Microsoft just pushes them to work, because my employers used to do it to me and I would foul up, so I rose thru the ranks of management and became an speaker of smooth change management, rather than hustling people in all the wrong directions, it is the only reason I was able to retire ten years earlier than most IT and Aviation/Hospitality people do, because I have been in both fields. I suffered job burnout but I live on a simple pension, have my sim hobbies and I live a wonderful life vicariously with the memories my family and daughter have given me, having struggled so hard for them. I believe in Jefferson Starship's anthem "We built this City" which some say is about New York, it is about Frisco where I was from, we were cool with each other in those days, we went to school so we would not be caught up in, as they say in their lyrics, corporation games. The Starship was one of the few major acts that visited Napa where I was raised, and where I first took up flight simulation and first learned to fly. I never wanted to be like that guy in Washington who stole a plane just to prove he could take off--I planned my life the way my forebears taught me, that only birds should fly forever, and we need to walk away from our landings no matter what. I learned that from reading about Eddie Rickenbacker's, the American WW1 Ace, will to live, as well as Chuck Yeager's will to see the stars. You want to live to see the stars, not to see them go away..... John CSTE CSHA CSFE Go to Youtube and you'll find "We Built This City", then go to search for the band Journey's "Lights" song. Both remind me of the minds that came out of "Silicone" valley, the men and women who created the GUI Interface and the web so we could live the lifestyles of the rich and famous, without having to be rich and famous.

I do love Xplane11's default European scenery, although my London scenery was enhanced with a free London Landmarks package. Some pics of the Ercoupe in the desert, and the Mustang from London City to Shannon where I did a "Harrison Ford" and accidentally landed on a Taxiway..... John

I can only say I have observed the same in their ATR42 for some reason, until I am in flight, then the fps improves. Some of their products are hit and miss, I do not quite know why because I have some similar tprops, like the Shorts and their Beech 200 that have fine fps. Report both aircraft to them as a bug--I believe one of their gauges has flaky code in it, no reason why the ATR series should not perform as well as their other P3D aircraft IMHO. John

I did not like the Premier in P3DV4.5 but I love the way it flies in Xplane11, and you are sooooo right, it is a fantastic little jet because it can keep up just enough with the big boys, with the right winds. My fav Carenado jet in P3DV4.5 is the slower Citation 550, I just love the way the wings are positioned, and I love the way it flies although I have always had to edit the default pitch setting in the aircraft.cfg to get the autopilot to follow its own settings. My favorite business jet for P3DV4.5 was the recommended Flysimware Falcon 50, and I have a series of screenshots in the screenshots forum and a video I just posted of a real time flight I flew from Napa, CA to JFK over mostly photo scenery. Even after that long flight I was able to nail the landing, the Falcon 50 models ground effect very well, it is better than the Carenado Falcon 50 which I bought, but did not accept, because it required too much FMS programming to get it to its destination, it did not have a direct gps option like the Flysimware aircraft does. One of my rare misses with Carenado, nobody's perfect..... John

The instrumental music in the background is by Peter White, a guitarist I saw in a free concert in San Francisco in 1993. That concert changed my life, the previous day I had flown to my parents home after being away for eight weeks on a long business trip, the real launch of my career as a business systems trainer since my first attempt did not go so well, because I needed to brush up on accounting training. I wanted to quit that job because my first business systems implementation with a cool friend named Max and his former Marine night auditor and my beautiful female colleague who was much like the woman I finally married I had to work 24x7 just to get the job done because I had heard previous implementations and trainings had gone wrong and our guarantor IBM was going to cancel our contract. I flew home very sad because I felt I had blown it, but I saw Peter White and decided to do my second gig for IBM in Mesa Arizona. When I got to Arizona, I checked my voicemail--we had to, in case our trips got cancelled which happened to me only once late on that contract when I flew to Vegas and back on the same day because of a client cancellation, to the surprise of my parents who I would always visit between business system training gigs. The voicemail I received in Arizona made my spirits soar. The head of IBM's hospitality division, a woman from India named Edaly who we called "Hello Dolly" in a nice way of kidding her, said I scored a knockout with the client and the client sang the praises of our company. I had saved our company from losing our contract but I had helped from my employee there, who also flew to Arizona because she wanted to be with me a second time around. We went on a date together, a platonic date, though she was a hugger and toucher which I liked, I like women and men who are gentle in that way. I rented a car from my client and drove her to Metro Center, a mall that almost died but I now live nearby it, and it has been revived. I saw the Mel Gibson movie "Man without a face" and both of us did not like it because it mocked teachers and suggested that teachers were child molesters. We preferred "Kindergarten Cop" over "Man Without a Face", that movie was truer to what male and female teachers do to teach people of all ages. My second business systems training was at a Holiday Inn in Mesa Arizona, which had a beautiful indoor/outdoor pool, I also have been to such a pool in Toledo Ohio at the Holiday Inn French Qtr, a New Orleans themed hotel which was my third gig after Mesa. Because of my Mesa experience, I picked Phoenix to move to with my ex wife because I feel it is the best example of a racially mixed city in a divided country at times, it is a true sanctuary city, and that has nothing to do with politics, it has more to do with the mood that pushes our economy. That is why I have no problem buying military or civilian add-ons for our hobby, past or present, whatever the nation, because it contributes to the economy of our hobby, and hobbies give us things to pursue in our leisure time, which can be less and less until we retire like I had to, ten years early, due to cancer. Back to Peter White, I subsequently paid to see him a few times in concert and have purchased many of his albums, this song is from his album "Smile" but there is no best Peter White album, they are all great. For those who were raised and graduated from high school in the 70's, like I did, Peter White goes all the way back to playing the keys and guitar on Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat" album, arguably one of the most poetic albums of all time, and one of the coolest voices to listen to back then. However I am still a fan of Led Zeppelin's "Song Remains the Same" album and their live rendition of "Stairway to Heaven", where Robert Plant begins the song with the message "This is a song of hope". I get euphoria every time I listen to that song simply because it respects heaven--i.e. our forebears, which we have many of. That is why I joke that I believe in the right to arm bears, because if you love your forebears and they have passed, you know your love has helped them find peace, regardless of your personal creed or background. We are all special and equally different which is why I like to joke about Avsim and call it "Av-Sin" because we spend so much time enjoying our sin here, tongue in cheek, sin is just my acronym for "Satisfaction in Need" My response to the Rolling Stones cool song with a double negative "I can't get no satisfaction" which actually means the opposite because we grammar geeks know about double negatives. That is why Pink Floyd had an inside joke on their album "The Wall"-- "We don't need no education, we don't need no thought control" They meant the opposite, for me it just means--chill dude, calm down, and enjoy the good and bad comments you hear at avsim, and accept that as your mantra or whatever.... Enough for the back story... The Flysimware Falcon F50 rocks and can nail landings quite well, she flies so well, even when I take pain meds, lol... John

It was actually the Flysimware F50, I like it better than the Carenado bird, easier to program the autopilot..... I like my texture resolution as is, for me it gives me a more faithful representation of scenery sharpness on most flights I have taken, which number about 300 or so to date over my career and life as an international tourist as well, plus my real life flying as a light sport and trike student. John

The rest of my Falcon 50 flight from Napa to JFK, which was flown in real time, although I had to pause the sim last night for a mandatory crew rest, lol, and so the Langoliers would not catch up to our flight.... The flight begins over Pennsylvania with Lake Erie in the distance with views of Scranton and Manhattan on the way in to JFK on vectors for 13R. 13R is the first runway I ever landed on at JFK, on my first trip to Europe in 77, roughly 50 years after Lindburgh's crossing, well just a bit short of the 50th anniversary of that crossing, which was on my birthday about six weeks after I returned from Europe via Munich/Vienna/Shannon/Gander/JFK and Dallas on my way home to SFO and finally my home in Napa. John

This set overflies Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Finally Nebraska

I stumbled upon an issue and a stupid mistake I made, advice that has been given here before, but the issue wasn't a stupid mistake. I noticed after a Windows update, that Windows blew away my most recent Nvidia driver to an older one, so I went back to GeForce Experience to get the most current driver to date. I noticed all three sims I have had some stutters, AeroflyFS2, Xplane11, and P3DV4, the topic here. The process of the driver swap blew away my Nvidia inspector changes, and I only use three settings Vertical Sync: 1/2 Refresh Rate Vertical Sync Tear Control: Adaptive Threaded Optimization: On These are the only options I set in Nvidia Inspector, they are not default driver options, I believe it was Jim Young or someone who suggested these settings However I noticed stutters in P3DV4 with these settings--it is because I had a frame rate lock and Vsync checked in the sim. Well, like HAL in 2001 Space Odyssey, as was revealed in the sequel, 2010 (both good movies, I like the message at the end of the latter) I was giving my graphics card conflicting instructions--listen to P3D, or Nvidia Inspector's settings. That's why I say it was a stupid mistake, I have not listened well to advice here, so I want to repeat it--leave VSync Off in your sims, and set fps to unlimited if the option is offered. The Nvidia Inspector settings manage better stutters, etc.... My P3D experience is back to what it used to be, that is my message to simmers who suddenly see strange issues in a previously smooth sim. Go thru this mental checklist: ~Have I made a system update (Windows or another driver update) ~Are my Nvidia (assuming you are like 99 pct of the Carbon Units on our planet and have an Nvidia card) settings changed or defaulted back to their defaults ~Do my sim settings conflict with Nvidia Inspector (or your other graphics card utility, if you are the 1 pct that use other graphics cards I hope this helps, as I have said, it has been said before, you do not have to endlessly tweak your sims, you just have to eliminate conflicting setting instructions. That was why HAL failed in 2001, a Space Odyssey lol As a side note: the first system I ever programmed was a proprietary Hotel Management System made by Qantel, still in business today, some 33+ years after I worked with it, called HAL which stood for "Hospitality and Leisure" John

The trouble with three sims is having so many screenshot opportunities. Especially when flying out of Napa California and out and over Nevada's stark yet beautiful basin and range scenery.... John

Anyone who has seen the movie, will appreciate the escapes when we actually get to our islands of reflection and relaxation ..... That is the heaven that aviation offers, vacations to exotic locales..... There is still a lot of sim earths left to Explore. The Scenery is free Martinique scenery for Aerofly FS2 with a free airport add on. John

Beech Premier and Aerostar...... Aerostar is over the NoCal coast....

I once had an Ubuntu/Linux OS as backup in case of Windows failure on a USB stick, it worked well because it gave me access to files on my system even if Windows would not start. I wish I had had the USB stick when my Vista system died, because I wanted to recover the source of four programs I have written for the web, one an old DOS program but mainly CDBase, a proprietary music catalog that allowed users burning onto cassettes (remember those) to search songs by length so they would fit perfectly and leave no trailing silence, especially when the auto reverse decks came out. It was my only ever Shareware program and I actually got paid $20 by a couple of folks, the joy I got from their sending me the money gave me millions of dollars of happiness. But since that time, all my code had been public domain, including my program for MSFS/P3D Landclass Assistant (but people do not use it anymore with so much photo scenery tools available). I also have two programs for school children from K-12 out there, MirrorArt, and Spirapaint, under my company name Cactus Artware, which I just made up on the fly since it's just for giving software and also career advice away for former colleagues and supervisors who need work in the IT field, since on disability I cannot derive income from that source, but I get good wishes. I will look into making a bootable version of Windows on USB, just in case, so I can recover my system in case of a horrendous issue... I appreciate you triggering the memory of my Linux/Ubuntu venture... John

As I mentioned in another thread, now I have all the scenery add-ons I have found for Aerofly FS2 working thanks to HiFlyer's detailed instructions. It came down to standardizing all scenery into one folder hierarchy that I set up via an edited main.ncf file, so I would not run out of Space on the Default Onedrive location for Aerofly's files. Now I have gobs of scenery, what is mentioned in this thread plus more, like Venice Italy and Cape Canaveral and its surroundings in Florida.... John

By far, this for me was the funniest airline commercial and I appreciated it more finally flying on British Airways non-stop from Phoenix-London and back a month later in 2017....

AeroflyFS2 with the free Vegas lights add-on and the Robinson R22, which makes for a great sightseeing platform. Were it not for the help of Hiflyer here, I would have never gotten the gobs of free scenery like the Las Vegas lights set up properly. Although AeroflyFS2 defaults to Onedrive, space is limited there for scenery add-ons unless you subscribe. But AeroflyFS2 has a hidden feature which allows you to add scenery to a secondary drive instead, by editing its main.mcf file. Enjoy Vegas at night, one of the cities that never sleeps, like New York, London, Rome and Paris.... John